Welcome. Three year olds are both awesome and so much work. I also have a 3 year old and she is a ball of energy. Thanks for the tip. I am definitely going to check this out. The daily task tip is actually a great idea. For the past 2 months I've dedicated my daily commute to listening to Podcasts but I definitely like the video/tutorial idea. Do you know of any that come in Podcast format so that I can view offline/while in the subway?

I'm 33 weeks pregnant and just started a coding role(C#/.NET development) 3 months ago. I plan to try and keep on top of my learning throughout my maternity leave even if it's just reading a blog post/watching a video a day. I'm only having the one and this is my first so I hope I can stick to this. Any advice that can be offered including good tech sites to read daily would be greatly appreciated.

I remember. The show was also on tv in the Netherlands at that time. Reading these stories about women, men young/old, mamma's or pappa's from different (ethnic) backgrounds who recently started learning to code or who are already experts makes me even more inspired and confident that I (41, mum of twins) can do this. It makes me feel so grateful about this platform and community.

Hi - I am WITH y'all, although my kids are older now (14 and 11). I recall what a time and energy suck working full time and having toddlers was, so I cannot complain. However, my kids are at that critical teen/pre-teen stage where sometimes they need me more than I realize, and in different ways. I decided to try coding after coming across so many job opportunities listed, whereas the jobs in my current field were getting fewer for people with my level of experience. People love to hire young, cheap designers! I am absolutely committed to learning new skills, so I am going after it with as much time as I can while still being present for my kids, managing my house and staying healthy. I am starting to feel like one of the keys to getting noticed is to blog about my journey. I am pretty active on social media and am trying to make connections, but I think I am missing that one piece where I can attract attention for getting hired at some point. It is secondary to being able to do the work well, but I think learning Wordpress might be on my ever-increasing to do list. Would love to hear some thoughts on that. Thanks!

Negative. You are partially but it's cool. I can't speak for most moms (actually, yes I can, most moms I've interacted with are actually learning back end like Rails, Python etc) but in my case, I am 100% interested in back end development starting with Python, because the application I support and manage at work uses python for workflow processes. I also need to become way more comfortable with SQL but that's another story. At the time I was looking at GA for training, they were only offering the FEWD (Front End Web Development) course on weekends for 10 weeks. I really wanted to take their backend course but figured starting somewhere was better than nowhere. Plus, I thought it would be good for me to learn front end then add back end slowly.

Thanks for letting me know @Christina_Morillo. Hope you're journey into back-end web development is more streamlined than mine. Every week there seems to be something new to get my head around. Plus I'll be on maternity leave soon so I'm dreading going back knowing I'm going to have to catch up all over again.

Christina - I'm in a similar situation. I have a full-time job (military). Two very young kids. The works.

The biggest things that helped me get going was:

Have a conversation with my wife on my goals. I would spend my free time learning to code to give us better options in the future. She has agreed to take the kids a little more to cover for me. It's been a struggle for us both, but I would not have gotten anywhere if I didn't get buy-in for the plan early with my wife.

Set up a structured learning plan. I'm with Bloc.io and highly recommend them. Or Tealeaf Academy. Both are well suited for part time.

Be really disciplined with my time. I have pretty much used up almost all of my precious free time learning to code the past 6 months. It has been a struggle, but the results are worth it.

FYI - I just made a newsletter for people in our boat. I couldn't find many resources geared towards me so I made one myself. It's called "Learn Code On The Side". You can check it out here if interested: http://www.chriskibble.net/lcots-newsletter/.

First off I'd like to thank you for serving our country. That's amazing.

It definitely is challenging especially with two. How old are your kids? Mine are , 43 & 9.5 months. You bring up great points. I think it's super important for the people in your family to be on board so it's definitely great that your wife has agreed to this. No actually, it's freaking awesome! Go Wife! Structure is definitely important. I'm more of a classroom setting learner and have struggled with following most of these online learning options. I just haven't found one that keeps me engaged enough. I'll definitely check Bloc.io and Tealeaf though. Thanks for this. I think your newsletter is a brilliant. I signed up the same day I read your post on the CodeNewbie twitter chat. Thanks for this.

Yeah, no kidding. My two toddlers are about the same age and they certainly take their toll on one's energy! But of course that's a trade I'm glad to make. Yes - structure and getting family buy-in are two of the "must haves" in my humble opinion. Coding is a hard enough skill to learn without having to fight upstream against your family or a loosely defined pathway. I'll show you response to my wife, she'll get a kick out of it!

Thanks for the kind words on the newsletter. I'm just glad to learn that I'm not the only one out there trying to teach myself on the side. Yes, I've had great success with Bloc.io. In fact, I just had a chat with my mentor for 15' where he got me unstuck from something that had been frustrating me for days. That's really what you are paying for - timely, expert advice that can guide you along your coding journey.

Yes, I did listen to @brianllamar episode and also chatted with him on his site. He's one of the resources I used while researching whether to take the plunge with Bloc.io or not. I can definitely relate to his story.

I hear you on how hard it is to find time to focus on coding. I have 2 year old twins that I'm home with, and I struggle daily with frustration because I want to be progressing faster with my studies... but I just do the best I can.

Things that help (I need to do more of the self-care mentioned above - sleeping more, taking care of myself).... I get up at 5am every morning (thanks to my dogs, LOL), and instead of going back to sleep after caring for them - I make myself some coffee and fire up Sublime and Udemy.com and get to work. Some days I may only get in 30 minutes in the morning if I'm feeling BLAH, but usually it's almost an hour. That way I've already done some practice, and had my coffee -- before my littles get up at about 7am.

Later in the day I may get in more time during their nap, but it often gets used for dinner prep or keeping chaos from overtaking my house. When I cook dinner I usually put podcasts on like Shop Talk or Control Click cast. Even if I'm not coding, I'm listening to people current in the field and it makes me feel like I'm doing something.

All that being said, I wish I could do more. To feel like I'm progressing -- and to see it -- I've been blogging my way through my Udemy class (Complete Web Developer course). It's one more thing to put on my list, but I like being able to show my work.

I think I may start copying you and wake up super early to code. I recently separated from my husband and not having the extra help around has been hard, specially since our 4 year old isn't handling the transition too well. I feel like every moment I'm not at work, it's been about him and soothing him. It isn't helping that he's fighting sleep. Getting 5 hours of sleep a night is taking it's toll, but hopefully things will calm down soon and we'll get into a routine shortly. Sorry to vent, it's been about a month and this is really the first night I'm able to do anything code related. All I want to do is sleep but I have been missing just talking code... sigh... just feels good to know that I'm not alone in trying to juggle it all. Hugs.

I'm so sorry about your separation. That must be terribly hard for you and your son. I have had to take care of mine on my own here and there when DH was away for work, and it's not easy. I have massive amounts of respect for anyone who parents on their own all the time.

Yeah, getting up early helps. I mean, it's 9PM now and I'm totally beat. Javascript is the last thing I want to think about (but at 5:45AM... it appeals to me... LOL). Mostly it gives me time to get completely caffeinated before my children wake up.

But also - be kind to yourself. I feel all this pressure to finish my classes quickly because I compare myself to people I see online who may be younger than me, and have less life responsibilities - and can practice coding day and night. Oh, how I wish I could. If I wake up and just can't work at my desk... I may just read. Relaxation helps the brain! Best wishes.

I think a lot of us are in the same boat. I'm the mom to a very energetic seven year old,I work a full time job (Sr. QA Engineer) and am going to school at night to get a business degree (it seems these days everyone wants a degree). I'm trying to learn Java and Selenium so I can go from being a black box tester to a white box tester and do automation, or least know how to do it. I'm also trying to learn Web Dev. I want to build a personal project I've wanted to create for quite some time, as well as just want to know how to do it. I start back to school next week and am dreading it. I'm taking Applied Calculus, and I know the homework will take all of my free time at night. With that being said I need to keep up my learning momentum on what can make me money now vs. big picture. So far the only solution I can come up with is to get up an hour early and spend that hour on coding. I'm lucky in that I work from home.

You can do it! It's hard. I think you have gotten some great suggestions. It is really important, especially as a mom, to make sure to take care of yourself.

Whatever condition it may be, you might be suffering from. But there's no particular age to start and stop learning. So its a suggestion from me not to stop learning, even though if you are in any difficulty. Learning doesn't go in vain. So keep on going, learning something new.